Why Was Mark’s Truck Not Seen Going up and Exiting from His Driveway Shortly before the Truck Fire?

In May 2005, Buffalo attorney Michael Kelly reviewed the police report and other information related to my brother Mark’s death from the severe burns he suffered when his truck burst into flames in September 2003.  Not long after, Kelly went to the scene to examine the location of Mark’s normal parking space just off his driveway and the path his truck would have taken down the driveway and into the field across from his house in Great Valley, NY.

Kelly wondered why Mark’s wife Susan would not have seen his truck come up the driveway and then turn into the paved area just off the driveway where he normally parked his truck.  (For photos of the front of the house and the driveway area, see post of May 29, 2012.)  Mark must have driven up his driveway and turned into that paved area off the driveway, as a fresh pool of his blood was found right where his truck would have been parked.

In fact, as one of the emergency workers on the scene of his truck fire mentioned to me, the pool of blood was found just where the driver’s side door of Mark’s truck would have been positioned.  In addition, as a firefighter on the scene mentioned to me and soon after affirmed to Atty. Kelly in an interview in July 2005, tire marks from my brother’s truck were observed going straight down the grass at the edge of the driveway and into the field where the truck ended up, facing his house.  Mark certainly drove his truck up his driveway and parked his truck as usual. But the pool of his blood found in his parking space raises doubts that Mark actually backed his truck down the driveway and fifty feet into the field (see post of May 29, 2012).  Yet Mark’s truck did go back down the driveway as it went toward the field.

As Kelly observed, the large picture window in the living room of the house (on the left) provides a clear view of vehicles coming up or going down the driveway, and a smaller picture window (on the right) also offers a good view of the driveway.  Furthermore, Susan in her witness statement taken the night of the fire says the following: “At around 10:30 pm I was on the phone and waiting for Mark to return home.”  One would then assume that Mark’s wife might have been looking out the window in anticipation of his return.  After mentioning that she heard a noise in the garage which she thought was from their cats, she states: “At around that time I saw fire out the front window of our house and after taking a closer look I could see Marks [sic] truck across the street from our driveway on fire.”

The lead NY State Police investigator Edward Kalfas should have asked Susan for clarification about her lack of awareness of Mark’s truck coming and going in the driveway around 10:30 p.m. shortly before the truck fire.  He might have asked her about the content of the phone call she said was engaged in at that time (on that presumed call, see post of May 15, 2013).  But judging from the police report, that does not seem to have happened.

From his interview with Kalfas and his then superior John Wolfe in September 2005, Kelly was surprised that no charts or diagrams of the scene appear to have been made as aids in the investigation.  Such visual materials might have helped to bring out various incongruities in information provided in the investigation.  But by focusing on suicide so early in the investigation, Kalfas did not press on to pursue the full facts concerning the night of Mark’s death.